No 'Red' or 'Blue' in the Green Room

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Fascinating Inside Baseball article in the NY Times Style Section: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/fashion/sundaystyles/04GREEN.html

No 'Red' or 'Blue' in the Green Room

WASHINGTON

DONNA BRAZILE calls them green room conversions.

One of her more recent went something like this: Ms. Brazile, the garrulous Democratic strategist, found herself in the waiting room - known in the world of television talk shows as the green room - with Senator Rick Santorum, the conservative Republican from Pennsylvania who campaigned to defeat her candidate, Al Gore, in the 2000 presidential campaign.

The two, awkwardly thrown together with little to do except contemplate the pastry spread, started to chat politely.

"Santorum and I, we're both Catholic, we're both from large families and we just struck up a conversation that ended up continuing, and I went over to his office one morning and had breakfast," Ms. Brazile said, ticking off the issues, from AIDS to faith-based institutions, on which the two have consulted since. "I have met a lot of people I would normally not even talk to," said Ms. Brazile, a regular on the talk show circuit. "Somehow in the green room you put all that aside. It's time for small chatter."


<...>

The White House communications director, Dan Bartlett, who is often too busy to return reporters' phone calls, found himself swapping parenthood stories at the height of the 2004 campaign with Tad Devine, a Democratic rival on the Gore and John Kerry campaigns.

I wish I could quote more - absolutely fascinating.